The Sandbox, a blockchain-based video game, has teamed up with HSBC to “take sports engagement to a new level in the gaming metaverse,” the firms announced on Wednesday. HSBC will purchase a virtual parcel of land in The Sandbox in order to engage with the game’s sports and esports communities.
In a statement, Suresh Balaji, CMO of HSBC Asia-Pacific, stated, “The metaverse is how consumers will experience Web3, the next generation of the Internet—using immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and extended reality.”
The Wimbledon tennis tournament, Tottenham Hotspur of English soccer, the World Rugby Sevens Series, and golf events such as the British Open and Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship are among HBSC’s existing sports partnerships.
- Facebook to hire 10,000 in EU to work on metaverse
- RTFKT, a virtual sneaker brand, is now part of Nike’s Metaverse inventory.
More than 200 brands have deals to operate in The Sandbox—including Adidas, Warner Music Group, Gucci, Atari, Ubisoft and athletes such as Swiss tennis player Stan Wawrinka and Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Marco Verratti. The Sandbox is owned by Hong Kong-based Animoca Brands, which also made Olympic pin NFTs used in a mobile game launched by the IOC.
HSBC is not the first bank make a metaverse deposit. JP Morgan opened a virtual lounge earlier this year in Decentraland, another digital world where users buy in-game real estate and perks with cryptocurrency.
Animoca Brands partnered with Formula 1 in 2019 to launch F1 Delta Time, an Ethereum-based mobile game. The game shut down Wednesday as F1 did not renew its licensing deal with Animoca Brands. Users will effectively lose their NFTs purchased in the game. Animoca plans to provide those users with NFT cars from another racing game it operates, according to Decrypt.
